Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Carolyn Bennett speaks during the AFN Special Chiefs Assembly in Gatineau, Que., on Tuesday, May 1, 2018. Crown-Indigenous Relations disclosed that 35,484 formal applications for Indian status were denied because the status of one or more relatives was not known to the Indian Registrar. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

More than 35,000 people were denied Indian status in the last three decades because of how their parents were formally registered with the government, new documents show.

In a letter to the Parliamentary Budget Officer dated June 30, 2018, the department of Crown-Indigenous Relations disclosed that 35,484 formal applications were denied status because they had one parent registered under section 6(2) of the Indian Act and another who was not eligible to receive status.

Of these cases, 2,089 were denied because of an unknown father, and another 709 were handed to the babies of women under 20. A vast majority of the ineligibility files were determined between 2003 and 2018.

The total number of people labelled “ineligible” by the department might actually be higher, as the department says “it is likely” some of the 4,713 cases closed between 1985 and 2003, when the Indian Registrar was modernized, could have also dealt with unknown or unstated paternity.

The department also wrote in its letter that the Registrar does not keep track of informal conversations between employees and registration hopefuls, who could have warned applicants about their status ineligibility before beginning the application process.

Registration gives Indigenous peoples rights they would not receive otherwise, such as an extended hunting season, fewer restrictions on weapon ownership and exemptions from federal and provincial taxes.

Last revised in 1985, the Indian Act says status as an Indigenous person is dependent on the lineage of both parents and their previous registration in the national Indian Registrar.

The Ontario Court of Appeal recognized last April that the existing Indian Registrar’s policy was “unreasonable” because it provides the applicant with a “high evidentiary burden” to disclose the identity of his or her parents, grandparents or ancestors, even in cases where it’s unknown.

In response, the department created a statutory amendment to the Indian Act in 2017, which allows other relevant documents such as long-form birth certificates, census records, band documents, as well as church and school records, to be considered legitimate documents to establish Indian parentage.

Now, Crown-Indigenous Relation’s website says Registrar needs to determine status by a “balance of probabilities” to figure out whether parents and grandparents of an applicant would have been eligible for Indian status.

At the time, the department also acknowledged that women are “disproportionately disadvantaged” by the existing policy to provide parental proof for their children.